Dry Days Ahead

Dry air is already back in place across the state, closing the door on our one rain chance of the week Monday. The chart above shows the forecast for the rest of the week across the country. Click here for the full size version.

Most saw little if anything Monday. A shower early in the afternoon produced .67″ of an inch of precipitation. Evansville – now officially in a “severe drought”- scrounged up .11″ of an inch of rain. The Indy Airport recorded a trace of rain.

Bob Nielsen, a Purdue Ag Prof and corn specialist (would the highest rank be “Colonel?”) tells the Lafayette Journal-Courier that most commercial crops are not in a dangerous condition. Yet.

“Amazingly a lot of the fields are hanging in there,” he said.

He said it likely was because of early planting and drier than usual soil, which caused roots to grow deeper than normal looking for moisture and nutrients.

So: an interesting combo this year of the historically hot month of May, and then temperatures much closer to average in May and June.

Indiana State Climatologist Ken Scheeringa said the lack of persistent high temperatures has kept water from evaporating out from the deeper layers of soil.

“We’ve had breaks this year. Recently we’ve had hot weekends, but the temperature is moderate during the week,” he said.

Ken could be reading right off my 7 Day Forecast chart, which once again turns hot come Friday. Right now the weekend is looking sticky, but don’t panic. The recent trend of the computer models has been to over-state future moisture. Of ALL sorts.